Adwords suggesting bids on competitors' names

What are the ethics here?

[buckworks]

If you type a term into the Adwords suggestion tool, it comes up with synonyms, longer phrases, and so on for you to consider bidding on. It will also suggest company names related to the product, and I'd be interested to hear what people think about that.

Example: Suppose your company sells widgets. One of your better-known competitors is Bloggs Fancy Widgets. As you seek ideas from the tool, you notice that one of the suggestions is simply "bloggs".

-- What are the ethics of Google suggesting someone's trademarked business name (or part of it) for the world to bid on?

-- What are the ethics and/or legal ramifications of including other people's trademarked names in your own keyword list to show your ads on their names?

Last year my client and I discussed the idea of bidding on competitor's names, and decided not to go there. But lately we've seen competitors bidding on HIS name. And the suggestion tool is telling them to do it!

Should we be outraged? Or should we see it as positive that his branding is strong enough that Adwords identifies his name with the product? Or both?

Have we been tooooo nice by not bidding on competitor names ourselves?

[eWhisper]

Thanks to G's policy of being able to bid on trade marked terms, it did get us to move quicker to trademark everything and submit the requests for others not to be able to bid on our name.

For products you sell, I see no problem bidding on a brand name.

For company searches, I'm not a fan that you can bid on names. However, after every competitor of ours was bidding on our name, we made it so they couldn't bid on ours, and then started bidding on all their names.

It's interesting data to see the stats of how often someone is searching for your competition.

If it's legal, it's yet another way of getting business, and these you're stealing straight from your competition.

[PatrickDeese]

AFAIK, it is not illegal to bid on a brand name - using that brand name in an adword maybe illegal, except (perhaps) in a comparative sense, like:

Gadgets
The alternative to Widgets!
Compare Our Features and Prices.
www.Gadget.com

IANAL though ;P

[qfguy]

I see nothing wrong with it as long as you are not trying to deceive and you do not use their name in the text of the ad.

I do it. What is wrong with the consumer knowing about the competition?

Would there be anything wrong with Pepsi paying the New York Times to run thier ad opposite of all coke ads?

This has not really been tested in the courts. I do it and it has been successful for me. I have an ad group that is made up of only the names of competitors. Many of them use my company name to display their ads.

Consumers as always best served by knowing about the competition.

[mahlon]

If they use our trademarked store name, they will be busted!

What is funny is Google dissaproved an ad we were running because the owner of a company, a company that we deal with in the store, did not want us using his trademarked name in adwords! Silly! Sort of defeats the purpose of selling as much as you can.

Ah, you can sell it in your store but you can't have an ad in Google for it! Just pure stupidity!

[qfguy]

Busted? You'd have to sue them. Google will take the word away if you can prove your trademark and them make you jump through some hoops.

[mahlon]

Thats right!